Incidents of a Whaling Voyage….

Olmsted, Francis Allyn. New York: Appleton, 1841). (New edition. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle, 1969).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Olmsted was a passenger aboard the whaler North American [a temperance ship] in 1839, a trip taken as a kind of rest cure for his chronic nervous debility. He returned to Yale for medical school and in fact graduated but died in 1844 after a second voyage.

Polar Pioneers. John Ross and James Clark Ross.

Ross, J. M. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A joint biography of uncle and nephew with much on other explorers of the time, e.g. Parry. There is an impressive body of contemporary literature surrounding the Rosses and Parry which is well-described here, including the acrimony between uncle and nephew, John and James.

Report of Winfield S. Schley, Commander, U.S. Navy, commanding Greely relief expedition of 1884

U. S. Navy Dept. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely); 1884 Greely Relief Expedition of 1883 (Commander Winfield S. Schley).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

With its extremely detailed accounting of the provisioning of this expedition, the report lists books ordered for the journey on March 1, 1884, for each of the three ships (Alert, Thetis, and Bear) as follows:

On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds,

Whitney, Caspar W. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine XCII (1896) in Five Parts with separate paginations for each.
  • 1894-95 US Overland Journey of Casper Whitney in the Barren Lands.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 360, on the Chipewyans on Athabaska Lake: It is headquarters of one of the four districts into which this vast fur-bearing land of one million square miles is divided by the Hudson Bay Company; the chief forwarding point for the merchandise which the company sends in for trade, and the fur the Indians send out as pay; a general distributing post-office of the four yearly mails which reach this land, where man is but a mere track upon the snow, and not above one hundred of the roughly approximated ten thousand read English writing. It is the most important North-land mission of the Roman Catholic Oblates Fathers, and it is practically the northern boundary of the Cree and the southern boundary of the Montagnaise Indian family, which in its various branches spreads toward the Arctic Ocean.

Greenland Journey: The Story of Wegener’s German Expedition to Greenland in 1930-31 as Told by Members of the Expedition and the Leader’s Diary.

Wegener, Alfred. Edited by Else Wegener, with the Assistance of Dr. Fritz Loewe. London: Blackie & son, 1939.
  • 1930-31 German Expedition to Greenland (Alfred Wegener).
  • Arctic Reading: Europe including Scandinavia
 Preview 

p. 140, Karl Weiken on the relief journey: During the excessive exertions and nerve-racking hustle of the summer we had often looked forward to the long restful winter night. First we would rest awhile and collect ourselves, and then we would be able to enjoy a good book again.

Cruise of the United States Frigate Potomac Round the World, During the Years 1831-34, Embracing The Attack of Quallah Battoo…..

Warriner, Francis. New-York: Leavitt, Lord; Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1835.
  • 1831-34 US Circumnavigation (Downes aboard Potomac ).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

First destination on this US cruise was Sumatra where an American vessel had been attacked by Malay natives. The cruise is most well known for the Potomac’s vindictive and intentionally revengeful attack on those Malays, the people of Quallah Battoo for their earlier attacks. Much of the beginning of the book deals with the skirmishes between the Western and Malay forces, but they need not concern us. Rather we have here some passages dealing with instruction in literacy and religion, the reading of Scripture, and accounts of libraries on the cruise route.

In the Lena Delta: A Narrative of the Search for Lieut.-Commander DeLong and His Companions; Followed by an Account of the Greely Relief Expedition, and a Proposed Method of Reaching the North Pole.

Melville, George Wallace. Edited by Melville Philips. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885.
  • 1879-81 US North Pole Expedition (commanded by George De Long aboard Jeannette).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

This was the crucial expedition in finding the fate of DeLong and the Jeannette.

Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton and the Changing Face of Heroism.

Barczewski, Stephanie. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.
  • Heroic Age 1901-1921.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Deals largely with the reversal of reputations of Scott’s decline and Shackleton’s growth throughout the 20th century, and the balancing of the two in the first decade of the 21st century. Unfortunately, this is a long book that should have been a short one. She insists on recounting the set pieces of all the voyages with individual chapters on the English expeditions (Discovery, Nimrod, Terra Nova, and Endurance), with minimal nods to Bruce, Filchner and others less preoccupied with the Pole that the two Englishmen. She tries hard to achieve a balance between the two but seems by the epilogue to be favoring late arguments on behalf of Scott, even when the arguments are weak (e.g. Fiennes claim that only one who has been there can assess Scott in the Antarctic). There is nothing that I found about reading or any non-curricular activity to help keep the men sane, though she suggests that a number went bonkers. A disappointing work which ignores the “destiny” of its title.

Nelson.

Walder, David. (New York: Dial Press, 1978).
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

p. xii: Meanwhile, The Times of October 10, 1843, reported the presence in Exeter of a rather unusual survival from Trafalgar. Mrs Sara Frank Pitt, the widow of a marine, had been on board Victory, and during the battle had been employed with other sailors’ wives in the customary duty of carrying powder up from the magazines to the guns. Hearing a false report of her husband’s death, she had rushed on deck to be reassured by his presence, but to see Nelson fall, mortally wounded. She subsequently buried a boy of hers at Alexandria and another near Sicily, and now in her old age, without child or husband, she I left totally destitute, without kin or associate, with no consolation but the recollection of the glorious bloody scenes in which she spent the early portion of her married life.’ Naturally enough, perhaps, Mrs Pitt was not anxious to join the procession of 200 Trafalgar veterans now being collected together for the unveiling ceremony [in Trafalgar Square], but she wished it to be known that if there should be ‘any distribution in largesse in commemoration of the victory’ she would ‘be thankful to receive a portion’.

1906-08 SS Roosevelt Library, 1906, 1908 (Commander Robert Peary)

  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

This list comprises those books known to be on Peary’s SS Roosevelt, books now surviving at Mystic Seaport. At some point these books were placed in the loan library box, but it appears to have no connection to any contents of the American Seamen’s Friend Society Loan Library that also went on these two voyages. A note with the library case, however, says that a number of books had been pilfered in Nova Scotia before the carpenter put chicken wire on it to protect the remainder.

John Caldigate.

Trollope, Anthony. Introduction by R. C. Terry. London: The Folio Society, 1995. [First published in book form London: Chapman and Hall, 1879.].
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

A romantic evening second-class deck conversation between a disinherited young gentleman and a mysterious widow (Mrs Smith) in some form of trouble. The talk turns to books, starting with John Caldigate, the deprived gentleman:

The World Cruise of the Great White Fleet: Honoring 100 Years of Global Partnerships and Security.

Crawford, Michael J. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 2008.
  • 1907-09 US Circumnavigation by the Great White Fleet.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Wonderfully illustrated volume, with the sixteen white battleships with gold trimmed bows, shown in formation. Not much about conditions aboard ship or amusements for the crew. Here is an example of the patriotic intent of the trip:

Elephant Island and Beyond: The Life and Diaries of Thomas Orde Lees.

Orde Lees, Thomas. Edited by John Thomson. Bluntisham, Hunts., UK: Bluntisham Books, 2003.
  • 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Endurance).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

A selection from the meticulous diaries of Orde Lees, who as chief of supplies and provisions was the least popular member of the Shackleton Endurance expedition, but nonetheless a fair, scrupulous, and fastidious store-master on the journey. Traces his aristocratic background and some of its effect on fellow crew members who could deride his chronic sea-sickness, or even accuse him of cowardice. Apart from his sometimes fawning attitude to Sir Ernest, it is a responsible piece of work.

Those Greenland Days: The British Arctic Air-Route Expedition, 1930-31.

Lindsay, Martin. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1939. [First published 1931.].
  • 1930-31 British Greenland Air Route Expedition.
  • Greenland.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

A rather less engaging book than his later Sledge, but informative on an expedition to scope out air-routes across Greenland by meteorological observations on the icecap. Several reading references: